Chapter 79 | Reborn as the Last Black Dragon

It was already noon by the time the two of them finally stepped out of their room.

The bandits had been locked in the woodshed all night. The rags stuffed in their mouths were thoroughly soaked with spit, and their eyes held nothing but exhaustion and resentment. When Leopold hauled them onto the handcart one by one, not a single one of them even struggled.

“Looks like they’ve finally behaved themselves after a night in there,” Leopold said, clapping his hands together before pushing the handcart toward the cathedral.

The main street of Blackstone Town was a bit livelier than the day before. A few vendors pushing empty carts were heading out of town, and a hot porridge stall had been set up by the roadside, with customers crouching around in small groups to eat.

As the handcart passed by, someone looked up briefly before lowering their head to continue eating, asking no questions.

The cathedral’s main doors were already open.

Leopold stopped the handcart in front of the steps outside the main entrance. A young man in a gray robe stood on the steps, writing with his head down in an open ledger.

“Here to deliver goods?” The man looked up at Leopold, his gaze sweeping over the tightly bound bandits on the handcart.

“Yes, we just arrived yesterday. I heard the prices here are quite good, so I came early to see how the market is,” Leopold said, putting on a merchant’s smile.

“Bring them over first.” The gray-robed man closed his ledger, walked down the steps, and leaned over to inspect the bandits.

“Those with spiritual affinity, stand on the left. Those without, stand on the right. I’ll check them one by one.”

As he spoke, he pulled a thumb-sized gray stone from his chest pocket and held it up to the first bandit. Leopold recognized it as the item the blacksmith had described—the so-called stone used to detect spiritual affinity.

The gray stone hovered in front of the bandit for two seconds without any reaction. The gray-robed man shook his head and pointed to the right. “Go over there.”

He walked over to the second bandit and raised the stone again. Still no reaction. “Right.”

The third, also right. The fourth, still no reaction.

The gray-robed man walked to the fifth one—the tall, thin bandit leader. The moment the stone was held before him, its gray surface lit up faintly. A very dim blue light flashed from the core of the stone before quickly dying out.

He turned around and made a note in his ledger. “Goods No. 5, low-grade spiritual light. Barely usable.”

“The quality of this batch is pretty poor,” the gray-robed man said, closing the ledger and looking at Leopold. “Only one out of the six is barely acceptable, and his spiritual light is pitifully weak. We can take them, but we can only offer the miner’s price.”

“What is the miner’s price?”

“One silver coin per person, and an extra five copper coins for the one with spiritual affinity.”

After saying this, the gray-robed man tucked the ledger under his arm and fished a small cloth pouch from his chest, weighing it in his hand. “Five silver coins and five copper coins. Do you want cash or to put it on account?”

“Cash,” Leopold said, holding out his hand.

The gray-robed man tipped the pouch upside down, letting several silver and copper coins fall into Leopold’s palm. Leopold squeezed them to confirm the weight was correct before tucking them into his shirt.

“Do we need to bring the ones without spiritual affinity into the cathedral?”

“No, no need.” The gray-robed man tucked the empty pouch away and waved his hand at the six bandits on the handcart. “These goods don’t need to enter the cathedral.”

“You can just leave. Our people will handle them.”

Leopold slipped the silver and copper coins into his chest pocket, nodded to the gray-robed man, and turned to push the empty handcart back without saying another word.

Isabella walked beside him. The two of them strolled unhurriedly along the main street until they turned the first corner, where they finally exchanged a look.

“The back door?” Isabella asked softly.

“The back door,” Leopold replied, leaning the handcart against the entrance of an empty grocery store by the roadside. “We’ll head around from this side.”

The two of them skirted around the back of the cathedral through the surrounding alleys. The further they went, the sparser the pedestrians became. By the time they reached the rear of the cathedral, there was no one left in sight.

Just as Isabella had said that morning, the cathedral's back door was indeed left slightly ajar.

Leopold stood by the door and listened intently for a moment. Once he was sure there were no footsteps on the other side, he reached out and gently pushed the door.

The hinges let out a series of harsh, grating creaks. He stopped immediately, and only after ensuring it hadn't triggered any reaction did he continue pushing it open just enough for a person to squeeze through sideways.

He slipped inside sideways, with Isabella following closely behind. Leopold paused at the entrance of the corridor, his gaze sweeping over his surroundings.

Low voices drifted faintly from around a corner.

“...The quality of this batch of goods is getting worse and worse. The last few they sent couldn't even register a basic spiritual light.”

“It can't be helped. The villages to the east have been almost completely cleared out. And with Lord Black Tide pressing us so hard, we're lucky to even make up the numbers.”

“Numbers? Does Lord Black Tide want numbers? He wants goods with 'qualified spiritual affinity.'”

“Then what do you suggest we do? It's not like we can give birth to them ourselves.”

Leopold and Isabella exchanged a look. He silently pressed his back against the wall at the corner of the corridor.

“Keep your voice down, don't let anyone hear you,” the first voice lowered even further. “Is Lord Black Tide's business something you can just casually gossip about?”

“I was just complaining to you... It's not like there's anyone else in the cathedral anyway.”

“Alright, let's finish counting this batch first. The black-robes are coming this afternoon, so we can't let them see us dragging our feet.”

Footsteps began to move, heading toward the hall at the end of the corridor.

Isabella glanced down the corridor. “Those two went toward the hall.”

“Let’s check it out.” Leopold had already started moving, keeping his back to the wall as he crept deeper into the corridor.

The cathedral’s interior was much larger than it appeared from the outside. Rows of tightly shut wooden doors lined both sides of the corridor. There were no windows on the doors, leaving the entire cathedral cast in darkness, rendering it impossible to see anything.

However, they were dragons.

“So many jars and bottles.” Leopold peered through a wooden door, finding the space inside filled with green jars.

“They’re gone, there’s no one here,” Isabella whispered behind him.

Hearing this, Leopold pushed the wooden door open and walked in, his gaze sweeping over a table. An open ledger lay spread out there, densely filled with names and dates, followed by peculiar symbols that seemed to indicate classifications.

“...Spiritual affinity detection records.”

Isabella walked over to his side, looking down at the ledger. “They’ve classified all these people into grades?”

“Yeah.” Leopold flipped a page. “Low-grade spiritual light, mid-grade spiritual light, high-grade spiritual light... and another category marked as ‘discarded.’”

“Discarded?” Isabella leaned closer, picking up another book to flip through.

“There's never been any mention of 'spiritual light' in our inherited memories, nor any records of sorcerers,” Leopold said with a frown. It seemed dragons were highly unfamiliar with humans.

“I feel like the things here are more than just records.” Isabella set down the book in her hand and walked to the other side of the room.

There, leaning against the wall, were several wooden shelves about half a person's height, with rows of yellowed scrolls neatly stacked on them.

Isabella casually pulled out a scroll and unrolled it. Inside was a hand-drawn diagram of a human body, with over a dozen locations marked in red ink, surrounded by dense annotations.